


Story of the Rose

by Nintendraw



Category: Fire Emblem: If | Fire Emblem: Fates
Genre: Children and Teen, F/M, Fiction, Gen, Literature, Short Stories, prose
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-12
Updated: 2017-03-12
Packaged: 2019-10-14 11:07:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,187
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17507444
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nintendraw/pseuds/Nintendraw
Summary: How Corrin got the white rose she always wears in her hair--or indeed, how she and Leo first became friends.





	Story of the Rose

**Author's Note:**

> Hi there! I'm Nintendraw, and this is my first story posted to AO3. I have a lot more writing stuff at my DeviantArt, GaiaOnline, and Reddit (all same name), and my art can be found on my DA, Tumblr, Twitter, and YouTube (last three at Nint3ndraw instead). I like Pokemon, Zelda, and Fire Emblem, but may write about other things too. Here's hoping to a fun time here!

As long as he’d known her, he’d known that Corrin loved flowers. Every day in her tower, alone save for a skeleton crew of servants, far removed from the cultural centers of the kingdom, she visited her garden thrice a day. Once in the morning to plant and water the seeds, once in the afternoon to check up on them, and once in the evening to water them again. In any other place, perhaps, her diligence would have rewarded her with the most beautiful flower garden anyone this side of the mountains had seen, but the land here was far too harsh to support such frivolous things, especially when it had a difficult enough time supporting the crops its people and livestock needed to live. Even when he told her that, Corrin would shake her head and fix him with a brave smile. “It’s just this place, silly,” she proclaimed. “Somewhere beyond this castle, there is land with life enough to raise flowers—and when I get out of here, the first thing I’ll do is plant a whole field!”

He knew her smile was just a façade because sometimes when he visited, he’d catch her sitting alone on the edge of her meager garden, her arms wrapped around her knees as she struggled not to cry. He knew without asking now what made the tears fall down her face. It wasn’t just the fate of her flowers, repeated daily like clockwork. It was the suffocating sameness—nay, worse, the _loneliness_ —which she was subjected to in this distant place, the solitude she was forced to endure but could not change. After all, even on horseback, he and his older siblings traveled for hours from Windmire to visit her. How could she—alone and on foot—ever hope to leave?

Once he made that realization, their trips to the Northern Fortress could not come quickly enough for him. Leo was a quiet child by nature, more inclined to burying his nose in a book than in other people’s affairs. His young childhood had worsened the matter, as his mother, as greedy and self-serving as the other consorts, had pitted him against countless half-siblings in an effort to secure their place in the castle and his title as future heir. But when he looked at Corrin, he saw not the willfully imposed quasi-isolation he’d given himself in self-defense, but a forcefully imposed total isolation which forced her to bond not with other girls (and boys) her own age, but with animals and plants.

Although he’d sealed his own heart away years before, he was not so callous as to be unable to see when another’s was hurting, nor to lose his base impulse to help.

And so the next time he came, he headed straight for the enclosed arboretum. Predictably, no one was there—Leo has insisted they time this visit for her midday nap. As he moved to the center of the rotunda, he opened the cover of his violet tome and began to chant.

_“Viven, viven, viven las fleurs…”_

Arcane words tumbled from his lips, as natural to him as the common tongue; and as they did, Leo felt the air in the room become charged with life-giving magic. The air around him became tinged with emerald as he poured Gaia’s energy into the parched earth, nourishing it, enabling it to grow and thrive. This was the power of Brynhildr, that divine tome his father, King Garon, had gifted him; the power that he’d finally come to master. This was the power of the earth’s native forces… of gravity, and of _life_.

Under his watchful gaze, rose upon rose sprang up out of the earth, some red like satin, some white as snow. Before long, the entire rotunda was filled with delicate petals. Leo had even managed to coax a few vines skyward to form elaborate trellises, just like the sort he’d seen in history books, back when the kingdom was still green. Entranced, he watched the tendrils spiral ever upward, imagining that they represented that dearest hope of his sister to be free.

And then suddenly, the spell was broken by an unexpected voice.

“Leo? What are you doing here?”

The rose tendrils fell away as startled, he turned to face her. There on the threshold stood Corrin, clad in a loose nightdress with a ragged doll at her side, all traces of sleepiness shocked out of her eyes at the impossible feat he’d performed. He recalled belatedly that he had never shown her his ability to cast magic; and last he’d checked, none of the staff here could do it either.

As much to hide his embarrassed flush as to apologize for his unexpected presence here, Leo ducked his head. There in front of his feet lay a single white rose, the color of Corrin’s snowy hair.

Almost unthinkingly, he plucked it and held it out to her.

“Every time I come here, I see you crying about your garden,” he began awkwardly. “So today, I decided to do something about it. I never told you I could cast magic, but here. I put a spell on this so it won’t ever die.”

As he said the words, he winced. What was he doing, bowing his head to his own sister when they were of equal rank? A memory floated back to him from etiquette classes: _“If you’re going to apologize, do it with your head high. That way, the person you’re apologizing to knows that your words are sincere.”_

And so, he raised his head to face Corrin fully. Standing as she was under the shaft of moonlight, she looked almost luminous—otherworldly, even, if not for the tattered teddy bear she dragged behind her. This was her sacred place he was trespassing on, and he’d changed it irrevocably. But at the same time, he was still a prince unused to apology, and her little brother besides. And so, when he opened his mouth, it was not platitudes he spoke, but the bossy command of a younger brother to his older sister.

“So quit crying now, alright?”

Corrin said nothing for a long moment, only regarding him in silence with those wide ruby eyes. Leo could feel a flush beginning to creep up his cheeks. How long was she going to make him stand here like this, holding a flower out to her like he’d seen cheap suitors do his mother? … Too, had he erred somehow by failing to apologize to her as he’d intended?

And finally, she smiled; and it was as if the entire world had lit up. Leo abruptly felt the breath leave his chest as, flinging the teddy bear aside, she crushed him in a tackle-hug.

“ _Thank you, Leo,_ ” she whispered. “Thank you so much. You don’t know what this means to me.”

He could feel the tears running down her cheeks again, but this time, he knew that they were tears of happiness, not loneliness. And as he realized that, he noticed something else in his heart: a warm, fuzzy feeling he’d thought had left him years ago.

**Author's Note:**

> A short story I wrote in response to a prompt on Reddit: ["Write the cutest love story you can."](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/5z2cbu/wp_write_the_cutest_love_story_you_can/) As soon as I read the prompt, I knew I had to write about [this old fanart of mine](https://nintendraw.deviantart.com/art/Story-of-the-Rose-629886338). My favorite of Corrin's accessories is the flower; I wanted to write how she got it ~~and how it doesn't ever end up dying~~.
> 
> I know I mixed two languages in that one line--something something artistic license? XD


End file.
